Most common words in English
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The list below of most common words in English, like any superlative list, cannot be definitive. It is based on an analysis of the Oxford English Corpus of over a billion words, and represents one study done by Oxford Online, associated with the Oxford English Dictionary.[1] This source includes writings of all sorts from "literary novels and specialist journals to everyday newspapers and magazines and from Hansard to the language of chatrooms, emails, and weblogs",[2] unlike some sources which use texts from only specific sources.[3]
Note that the items listed may represent more than one actual word; they are lemmas. For instance the entry "be" contains within it the occurrences of "is", "was", "be" and "are".[4] Note also that these top 100 lemmas listed below account for 50% of all the words in the Oxford English Corpus.[1]
Rank Word
1 the
2 be
3 to
4 of
5 and
6 a
7 in
8 that
9 have
10 I
11 it
12 for
13 not
14 on
15 with
16 he
17 as
18 you
19 do
20 at
21 this
22 but
23 his
24 by
25 from
26 they
27 we
28 say
29 her
30 she
31 or
32 an
33 will
34 my
35 one
36 all
37 would
38 there
39 their
40 what
41 so
42 up
43 out
44 if
45 about
46 who
47 get
48 which
49 go
50 me
51 when
52 make
53 can
54 like
55 time
56 no
57 just
58 him
59 know
60 take
61 people
62 into
63 year
64 your
65 good
66 some
67 could
68 them
69 see
70 other
71 than
72 then
73 now
74 look
75 only
76 come
77 its
78 over
79 think
80 also
81 back
82 after
83 use
84 two
85 how
86 our
87 work
88 first
89 well
90 way
91 even
92 new
93 want
94 because
95 any
96 these
97 give
98 day
99 most
100 us
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